On being delusional (in a good way)

Are there any questions that you’ve been asking yourself lately, or themes you feel drawn to?

“How do you have fun?” That’s a question I’ve been asking. I’ve been in a phase of wanting to be the one orchestrating as opposed to reacting to whatever’s coming to me.

I think of work for money versus the work for myself as two separate worlds. I got an agent a year ago. They’re helping me navigate the commercial world, which is strange compared to editorial. It’s about the client experience, being this product or service. I’ve been thinking, “What’s my product?” and “What’s my service?” and “What makes me different to work with than anyone else?”

With editorial, it’s more transactional. You’re asked, “Hey, do you want to shoot a portrait of some celebrity on Tuesday?” With commercial work, it’s more like you get the opportunity to present your work to them. Once you get that opportunity, you have to really prove that you’re valuable enough to be hired. I get it. There’s bigger budgets, bigger stakes.

When you get an idea, how do you start working with it?

I think about the things I talk about at parties or what I click on on the internet.

Our search history says so much about ourselves.

That’s where the root of personal work should come from. My book Bedfellow was really about gender and relationships, and trying to explore this complicated relationship with men. It was the age of the “men are trash” narrative on the internet. I didn’t believe the “men are trash” thing, but I didn’t feel like it was the opposite either. I wanted to explore that gray area and make pictures of sexual experiences, or see what desire from a female perspective looks like.

After Bedfellow, I went back to the drawing board a bit to figure out what I’m interested in now. I thought maybe… climate change? But I’m not talking about that at parties, I’m talking about why am I still obsessed with the movie American Pie. I’ve realized I’m still interested in the same things: gender, sex, and power. So that’s what I’ve been focused on in pursuing new work.

It’s admirable to pursue ideas you are naturally drawn to versus something you think you should be doing.

I don’t know if this work will help me commercially, but it feeds my soul. I was talking to this guy at this party and he said, “People who work enjoy the party more.” I’ve been thinking about it a lot. It works oppositely too. You have to work to enjoy the party, and you have to go to the party to enjoy the work.

How do you structure your schedule between personal work and commercial jobs?

Some weeks are better than others. I really suffer from work addiction, and I can have really bad work boundaries. I used to do $100 all-in editorial shoots that I would never show anybody, just because it felt good to be asked. It felt good to be thought of. Then when something came up that I was really excited about, I would totally flop because I had already drained the creative bank.

In the last couple of years, my boyfriend, friends, and therapists have really helped me in trying to balance that out. I’ve also been trying to build a team around me to help take some stuff off my plate. Last week, I canceled a bunch of plans because I had all of these unexpected deadlines. I had a mini spiral because I had chosen work over my friends again. It’s always one step forward and two steps back… Saying no used to make me feel guilty, but then I had this epiphany. Maybe it sounds trivial, but saying “no” is saying “yes” to something else.

What role does self-portraiture play in your work? I remember you mentioned in an interview that you included yourself in Bedfellow “to have skin in the game.”

It’s just easier to ask myself to be in the photo. I know what my boundaries are within it, and sometimes I have an idea and I can’t be bothered to ask anybody else. It’s convenient. But I don’t really think of self-portrait as a portrait. I’m just an available model. With Bedfellow, it was an extremely personal narrative, so I felt I should include myself as the narrator. If I’m asking people to participate in this story I want to tell, I want them to feel like it’s an even playing field.

I was really moved by how you reclaimed your own narrative around leaked nude photos with Bedfellow. You actively chose what images to include, versus somebody doing that for you.

I felt ashamed of it for a long time, but talking about it set me free in a way. I felt like I had this opportunity to speak about this objectively bad thing—having explicit photos of yourself on the internet without your consent—and create nuance around it, maybe even make someone laugh. If I’m going to be a “victim,” at least I can be funny about it.

When did you know you wanted to pursue photography?

When I was 13, I really wanted to be in punk bands in Ohio. I tried, but I just don’t have that skill for music. So I started taking photos of bands. I needed them to need me. I still use photography in the same way: to get access to people, communities, and lifestyles. Photography is the only thing I can’t scratch the itch with. The more I learn, the less I know. My YouTube searches and Reddit pages are still only about photography and lighting. I’m terrified I won’t be obsessed someday, but in my free time, photography is still the thing I choose.

What steps did you take to grow your career and find the right people to surround yourself with?

I went to school for photography at the School of Visual Arts, and I got really lucky with my friends there: Molly Matalon, Corey Olsen, Tim Schutsky, Bobby Doherty, and David Brandon Geeting. Then we’ve added some SVA honorary members like Chris Maggio, Ryan Lowry, and Tim McConnell. I got really lucky with a community from the start, which I think a lot of other photographers can really struggle to find. They’re my actual best friends and also happen to be photographers.

After school, I worked as a photo editor to pay off loans and learn about the industry. I didn’t have the luxury of uncertainty after school. I got this great opportunity to be employed and learn about the inner workings of the industry. How do you send an email? What is the client looking for? What do you say when a shoot doesn’t go well? How do you ask for more money? It was so helpful for me to get to work with so many different photographers and see what their process was like.

I don’t have any family financial support, so I always felt like, “I’m gonna fight to the death to make sure I survive.”

Do you ever feel competitive with your photographer friends?

We do different enough things with different niches. There were periods when Molly Matalon and I would get emails for the same job, and they’d forget to erase one of our names. So the email to me would say, “Hey Molly, we’ve got a great project for you.” I’ve been in triple bids against my best friends. It’s not something I let myself think about. Going on Instagram is a daily deluge of thousands of people you’re in competition with. I’m already dealing with the constant wave of, “You might make a ton of money tomorrow or you might not work for six months.”

How do you hold on to hope and excitement about an opportunity while also knowing that it might not actually happen?

That’s honestly one of my biggest struggles right now. I did a silent meditation retreat once. They kept repeating, “Desire is the first step in misery.” You can’t feel happy when you get the job and you can’t feel sad when you don’t get the job. You just have to realize your purpose on earth is to love others.

I think being delusional is helpful. I don’t have another path. I don’t believe that I could do anything else… I wake up every day, and despite knowing there’s thousands of talented photographers in the world, I’m delusional enough to think I’m going to succeed.

There’s delusion in conviction. Then looking back, it’s not so delusional to see all you’ve done.

I don’t feel like I’ve done anything. I taught a class that SVA called “How to Make It as a Working Photographer.” I didn’t choose that name. I was like, “Have I made it?”

What do you like to do outside of photography?

I love swimming and skiing. It’s a bit woo woo, but swimming feels spiritual to me. I grew up competitively swimming and got super burned out. I was sick of looking at that black line. Now, it feels like reclaiming something that felt like a chore… I like going out and dancing. I’ve made new friend groups out of that. I was truly only friends with photographers. Now I have a friend that’s a lawyer.

I think it makes life feel more expansive when you connect with people doing different things and have different interests.

I didn’t realize how much time I spent talking about photography and work with my friends. When someone’s new boyfriend or girlfriend would come into the group, they’d be like, “Wow, that’s really all you guys talk about.” My boyfriend will interrupt us now and say, “Okay guys, we don’t need to talk about treatments right now.”

What are the rewards of photography?

I worked in an office for five years as a photo editor. Going into an office every day crushed my soul a bit. I was meal prepping, working out at Equinox, and thinking about the clothes I could wear to the office and to hang with friends after. I wasn’t put on this earth to make a week’s worth of chickpeas for my office lunches. Now my life is so varied. I get access into places that no one else gets to go to. I have a lot of gratitude. Just in the last year, I’ve skied in Patagonia and swam in many oceans for work. I still can’t believe I get to do this.